Is It Time to End the Relationship?

Bamboo.  The word  brings to mind a flood of images from Asian paintings to beautiful groves of timber bamboo to trendy floor covering.  It can also elicit a shudder from folks who have gone to battle with the rampant running varieties.  Alan (It's Not Work, It's Gardening) reminds us that one must rhizome prune every year or get "problems."

About 20 years ago, I saw my first Phyllostachys vivax  in a pot at a nursery.  Because the pot kept blowing over, large canes had been cut in half. The diameter of the canes was impressive so I happily took the plant home.  It had no tag and didn't come with a warning.  It grew happily in a pot in my former garden and came to this garden about 18 years ago but didn't get planted in the ground for a couple of years.

The interweb was not as advanced in those days and the garden books didn't say anything about barriers.  The pot got planted in the ground and behaved so well for a few years that I assumed there was nothing to fear.  I was told to just kick over the tender emerging culms where I didn't want them to grow.  That works just fine but no one said anything about rhizomes continuing to grow further .

The clump soon filled in it's allotted space and then jumped across  garden paths to emerge on the other sides.  That too was okay but in the last few years, the beast has started invading a large sunny bed, growing around the pond where the rhizomes have caused some of the rock work to tilt this way and that, and seems set on growing into our old brick foundation.

Last year, I sawed down half of the grove and started a bit of rhizome pruning.  The added light in what was becoming a very dark area was quite nice.

It's beautiful, enjoyable to experience and elicits more comments from guests than any other plant in my garden.

There's still a dark side...

"Oh, the Pain of Loving You."

The happy underground rhizomes grow fast and far.  Here one is  removed from beneath a bed of Pleioblastus viridistriatus another runner that gets cut to the ground each spring and fills in beautifully.  This one is not as scary as the rhizomes are small making them easy to cut and pull up.

One of the many buckets of rhizomes that filled two yard waste bins.

Just to clear out the edge of this bed.  The resident saxifrage patch was becoming less vigorous each year.  I guess having hungry rhizomes beneath your roots will do that.  So while sensible gardeners were out getting their plants in the ground, pulling weeds, and enjoying the sunny weekend, I was out digging out rhizomes which included having to remove and reset part of a brick walkway.   Good times.

Any little piece left in the ground will send up little shoots.  However, if not connected to the mother plant, the rhizome will eventually run out of energy and die if you keep cutting these down and providing food.

Another grove got cut to the ground last summer so now it's new sprout patrol for the next few years until I finally win the battle. Is it time to end the relationship with the timber bamboo grove or should we continue together?  Eliminating it would take some time, a ton of work, and look horrible for a couple of years but it could be done. (Might be easier to simply sell the house and move.)

In other bamboo news, Hibanobambusa Tranquillans, another running stunner to only about 14 feet, had gotten way to crowded, tall, and also wanted to take over the world so down it all came. this also allowed greater access to the Hedera helix taking over the rotting wood fence behind the bamboo.

This will be allowed to grow back in the one area as the new growth is so beautiful. 

We won't even mention Sasa tessellata mostly because it's now called Indocalamus tessellatus which pops up everywhere.  How can one not enjoy that huge foliage?  The mites sure like it.  One of the reasons I grow so many plants in pots is because much of my soil is filled with various bamboo rhizomes. 

One might think that I would learn a lesson yet when I saw  Phyllostachys vivax aureocallus, in it 

went. So now, there are about ten varieties of bamboo growing in my garden.   On the bright side, it is evergreen and feels a bit tropical.

Do you grow bamboo?  Did you wisely chose clumping bamboos?  Do you grow runners in a pot or within a barrier of some sort?

Blown Over!

We had a bit of a windstorm on Friday and Saturday.  Some folks lost power and there were a couple of  stories in the news of trees falling on cars and houses.  We were spared any such damage.  However,  a bamboo that acts as a divider between two areas in my side garden blew over.

 

It took with it a column that stood nearby.  Fortunately, there was no damage to the column.  It came in several parts that stack on top of each other and simply unstacked. 

The good news is that the bamboo was growing in an ugly white plastic pot with the bottom cut out if it that I'd been using as a root barrier.  Silly really as this is a clumping bamboo.  The pot was mostly buried but about a foot of glaring plastic stuck up above the soil line.  I'd hoped to get the pot out of the picture but couldn't get it to move this summer so the wind actually did me a favor.

 

The dragon head that lived on top of the column did suffer some damage but can be repurposed somewhere else.  So, while the wind helped me, beneath the pot is hard soil full of timber bamboo roots. I got rid of that bamboo and thought that the roots would rot away sooner than they have so digging a deeper hole to plop this plant into will take some effort but I'll be very happy to be rid of the ugly looking white plastic business.

 Let's hope for calm and relatively dry weather next weekend when I'll get to tackle putting this all back together again!

Visiting Jade Mountain Bamboo

About 11 years ago, Phil Davidson (formerly of Torii Station Bamboo), together with Dale and Joanna Chestnut, opened a specialty nursery called Jade Mountain Banboo.  Cold hardy bamboo is the fucus and they also offer some tropical bamboo suitable for indoor use along with hand crafted stone and concrete garden art.   It had been at least six years since I last visited this nursery when I drove away with a truckload of bamboo plants that have been happily  growing in my garden since then.  While Jade Mountain Bamboo is not a long drive from home, it's in an area where I don't often go.  This weekend I decided to visit again. 

Any really good nursery has at least one, if not a staff of furry greeters. This handsome fellow jumped on the hood of the car as we got out, welcomed us, and inquired if we needed help finding anything.  Is that an adorable face or what?

Jade Mountain has sales areas, an inside space with books about bamboo, and a private garden  which demonstrates the use of a variety of hardy bamboos. 

While this acer palmatum is surely gorgeous in the summer, I'm glad to have seen it in the winter as it's stunning now!

 There was a nice young man  working around the sales area who said that his uncle and dad were sort of out of the business now and he was doing it on his own.  Wow!  That's a lot of work for one person!

 I love the color of newly emerging Ajuga foliage!

Speaking of newly emerging, check out this Petasites bloom poking it's winter weary head up to see what's happening.

 This pond is HUGE!  No koi though.

 Here are a couple of the many bells, mentioned on the sign that are placed throughout the garden.

 Exotic bamboos blend beautifully with natives.

 There are many spots where the bamboo seems to close around you and frame portals to larger, more wide open spaces.

 Another surprise to be found in the garden; Totem with a cedar, a tree of great importance to costal indian peoples.

 More of the pond.

 Iron Butterfly!  Am I the only one who's hearing  In A Gadda Da Vida in his head?

 Whale emerging from a rock.  The other side of this piece looks like an untouched stone.  Way cool to discover both sides.

 Torii gate leading to the plant sales area.

 In addition to bamboo, there are quite a few bonsai and acer palmatum offered for sale.

 Fatsia japonica showing why we love it; It grows in just about any soil, any exposure, and looks gorgeous year round.

 Perhaps you've been looking for a lucky toad.

 Or one of these other fun pieces.

 The Phyllostachys vivax grove suffered a lot of damage in our heavy and wet snow storm last year but will recover.

For more about Jade Mountain Nursery and growing bamboo in the Pacific Northwest, click here.  Wishing you all the best week ever!  Only 36 days until spring!

A road less traveled; The garden of Mike Adcock

From a moving vehicle, this might look like a typical northwest yard with its lovely evergreens and tidy shrubbery.  Wait!  is that bamboo?  Yup, those nice little mounds of green are bamboo as are the taller plantings behind.

As you turn the corner, palms become visible, and you might notice the cool rusty metal railing on the ground and the beautiful sumac.  This place might be more than what first meets the eye!

Behind this Clark Kent Exterior lies a Superman of a garden!

Stepping inside, we see creative recycling of materials everywhere.

There is so  much to see in this fabulous garden.  Notice the trachycarpus fortunei fruit cluster on the right.

Throughout the garden there are wonderful assemblages incorporating plants.

Like these slumped glass, wire and bead pieces hanging from the limbs of a tree.



And this bowling ball and rock wall.  Notice the mondo grass on the left and the fading leaves of a cyclamen in the upper right.  Soleirolia soleirolii a.k.a. baby tears, angel tears and mind-your-own- business seen at the bottom of the wall wanders throught the garden and gives a feeling of continuity.

O.K. so you noticed the skull a couple of pictures back.

There are more.

An artist friend of mine once said that he loved hearing how others interpreted his work.  Sometimes, what the viewer reads is far different from what the artist was thinking.  I'm not sure what Mike was thinking with these but they remind me of the bones that one sees beneath the floors of European Cathedrals.  They speak to me of the earth's cycle of life, death, renewal; the dead creating  fecundity for the living and remind me of a line from one of my favorite hymns:  "...and mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won."  For me, this whole space speaks that feeling of connectedness.

These windchimes are HEAVY and make a really cool sound.

Looking up

Along the path which is covered in a gravel/glass mixture.

Much of the garden is made up of free-standing raised beds which invite exploration and make the small space seem quite large.

No garden is complete without ros...lilie...the front of a motorcycle coming throught the fence.  Folly or memorial?

Another section of the fence.

We wend our way to a seating area.

A broken column; discard from a statuary place? Symbol of a life cut short?  Both?
I love that this garden makes you think and feel.

Glass tile pavers which I admire everytime I visit and vow to make for my own garden.

New since last time I visited.  Love the white ironwork!

And the rusty metal railing.

There are memorial areas throughout the garden, some more obvious than others, which gives the whole the feeling of sacred space.

More cool re-use!

This is like the buddha that I hope to have in my own garden, perhaps even by the time you read this.

As I wave good bye to this unique garden, I'm filled with peace and ideas for many of the items piled up in my garage.

Glad you came along!  Did you get any ideas?